Do we really have to worry about the increasing temperatures?

Greenhouse gases are an essential component of the earth's atmosphere and climate changes are natural events, so why all of this hassle?

Major climate changes have been happening already several times throughout the centuries- a sudden heat wave that eradicates the dinosaurs or the ice age are just some examples. Also, naturally some years are warmer than others. So how serious is the current climate change really?

What are greenhouse gases

In order to answer this question, let’s first understand what greenhouse gases actually are. There are different gases that are included under this term. Those are, among others, water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons. Greenhouse gases are to some extent essential for the climate. As a mater of fact, they are necessary for maintaining life on earth by protecting the climate from becoming too cold. The way how this works is that electromagnetic radiation from the sun is absorbed by the earth. This leads to the earth’s surface heating up and sending back energy into space in form of infrared radiation. However, some of that radiation is also absorbed and temporarily stored by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Those will then re-emit the radiation back to the earth’s surface and hence contribute to keeping the planet warm.

What makes greenhouse gases critical

The quantity of greenhouse gases is constantly varying because of natural causes. For example, the concentration of carbon is partially influenced by active volcanoes and how much carbon dioxide they emit into the atmosphere. Nevertheless, there are three different masses of carbon that can indicate the source of where they come from. Those masses can be 12, 13 and 14. Volcanoes, for example, mostly emit carbon with a mass of 13. Carbon that has a mass of 14 is radioactive and decays after some time. Lighter carbon, on the other hand, has an organic source, such as fossil fuels. As the current atmosphere shows increasing amounts of carbon dioxide with a lighter mass, it can be concluded that those must come from organic sources. This means, that human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, necessarily must be behind the increase of greenhouse gases. The problem is that increased amounts of greenhouse gases lead to more infrared radiation being stored which then lead to increased temperatures on planet earth.

The danger of increasing temperatures

Since 1880 global temperatures increased on average a bit more than 1°C. Especially the industrial revolution marks the start of rising temperatures due to human activities. Now you might think 1°C does not sound too much, so why should we even bother? The rise in the global temperature is only an average number. On the basis of current events this year of intensive floods or storms and the constantly ongoing melting of glaciers, it is visible that some areas warmed up more than others. Especially land areas are majorly affected as they warm up more than sea surfaces. With an ongoing increase of temperatures, catastrophes as those from the past moths would then become more extensive and frequent.

What needs to be changed

Causes of increased greenhouse gases are, for example, livestock farming, especially of cattle, and intensive agriculture, such as the cultivation of rice. Both of them are responsible for producing large amounts of methane and nitrous oxide. Also, as indicated before, greenhouse gases increased because of the burning of fossil fuels, for instance, through the use of cars. Deforestation makes this issue even worse as it decreases the number of trees that would be capable of keeping the atmosphere clean by filtering out carbon dioxide. Therefore, it is necessary that we come up with new, environmentally friendly approaches and actively reduce our carbon footprint to decrease temperatures again and save the earth and its diversity.

What are you going to do to act against climate change?

Learn more about this topic and how you can act against the harming effects of deforestation by reading our other blog posts:

• Planting trees from the comfort of your home

Sources:

Rosen, J., "The Science of Climate Change Explained: Facts, Evidence and Proof," The New York Times, April 19, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-global-warming-faq.html, accessed 03 November 2021

Earth Observatory, "World of Change: Global Temperatures," Earth Observatory, January 29, 2020, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/decadaltemp.php, accessed 03 November 2021

BBC Bitesize, "Acid rain and global warming," BBC, June 11, 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/znsk7ty/revision/1, accessed 03 November 2021

#climatechange #globalwarming #environmentalcatastrophe #pollution #greenhousegases #climateaction #deforestation #carbonfootprint #environmentalfootprint